For those few of you that don't know, Games Workshop came out with an updated FAQ for Imperial Guard recently.  Here are some random thoughts on it (in no particular order):

• Many of the new clarifications were clearly meant to stop pure cheddar from over-running the battlefield.  Come on -- using a mortar to range in your off-the-board barrage from the Master of Ordnance?  Those are the sorts of tricks everyone should know are bad sportsmanship.
  
  
• That loud collective moan you are hearing are all those Storm Trooper players who suddenly can't use "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire" with Hotshot Lasguns.  I guess this is a reasonable limitation as the guns are AP3, but then again Storm Troopers are as pricey as space marines now (but without the power armor and great stats).
  
  
• I'm not sure about limiting the effect of multiple Astropaths or Officers of the Fleet to a single +1 or -1, respectively.  I can see how having two Officers could really mess up an opponent if you know they are going to rely heavily on reinforcements.  Otherwise, bringing one might not be worth it let alone two.  Astropaths are more likely to be useful since you can obviously design an IG force to utilize their talents, but again is a +2 really that cheesy over a +1 when you are talking IG?  Maybe, which is why I won't say I flatly don't like this new clarification, but it certainly means you'll pretty much never see two Astropaths and maybe not even a single Officer of the Fleet.
  
  
• I can see why they limited Penal Troops with the gunslinger ability under the "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire" order to three shots at just 12" for game balance, but it does violate the letter of the rules.  The point of assault weapons is that they can fire at full range even while the troopers move, but here gunslingers still only benefit from the order at half the assault weapon's range.  Not a biggie, but considering that you can't guarantee that your penal scum will have the gunslinger ability there wasn't a significant game balance issue anyway.
  
  
• The clarification as to what inducted Guard you can take in your Inquisition armies is quite welcome and will help 'Hunter players avoid arguments.  However, I do have minor beef with the 0-1 Leman Russ choice only being the vanilla Russ and no variants.  One, the price on those other types are pretty high anyway which limits their appeal, and; Two, why give people yet another reason to not play Inquisition?  Giving 'Hunter players the bonus of taking one of those cool new LRs variants would have been a nice reward for sticking with an otherwise rare force.  Oh, well -- at least being able to take appropriate IG special characters with your inducted Guard helps makes up for this.
  
  
• Nice to see that Grey Knight terminators can't hitch a ride on a Valkyrie/Vendetta, but there is nothing about not being able to carry power armored Grey Knights or Sisters of Battle.  I take back what I said about not encouraging people to play Inquisition -- Grav chute Gray Knights here we come!

I am back from Washington D.C. and finished with all that real life work, so it's back to the fun stuff -- posting here.

My plan was to find material that was directly applicable to GW games, but fate got in the way of me getting the best stuff.  For instance, there was an Smithsonian exhibit on 15th/16th century armors, a perfect tie-in to Bretonnian and Empire styled armor.  Only one problem -- it was (as far as I can tell) the only exhibit in the whole Smithsonian system where photography wasn't allowed!  Arrrrgghhh!

So, I had to settle for cool, but not quite as relevant material.  Still, I think it can be inspirational.  The first two pairings of photos are from the Natural History museum.

 

Picture One is of a Dimetrodon, a mammal-like reptile that lived around 280 million years ago in the Permian era. To explain why it was "mammal-like" I need to geek out a bit.

Around 320 million years ago during the Carboniferous the primitive reptiles of the time split off into two basic groups – the saurapsids and the synapsids.  The first group led to everything we commonly think as being “reptiles” including beasts like turtles and alligators, but more famously into dinosaurs and their descendants, the birds.  The second group led to the “mammal-like” reptiles which are so named as they eventually produced all mammals, including you and me. 

So, the Dimetrodon is a distant cousin of ours that is more closely related to us than to lizards or Theropods like T-Rex.  What I find interesting is that for the first 70 or so million years it was our primitive ancestors who were the dominant branch while the saurapsids remained more in the shadows.  Then the “Great Dying” at the end of the Permian (which killed off as much as 95% of all species) all but wiped out the synapsids, thus allowing the subsequent domination of the dinosaurs and related animals for the following 185 million years.  One example of a dominant saurapsid is Picture Two which is of an aquatic dolphin-like reptile called an Ichthyosaur.

Of course, 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous a big rock walloped the Earth and suddenly most of the saurapsids bit the dust, thereby allowing our ancestors to once more become the dominant animals on the planet (Yippee!).  What goes around comes around, I guess.

 

These next two animals are from eras even older than the first two.  Picture Three is of a Placoderm from the Devonian, approximately 430-360 million years ago.  It was a member of a family of large predatory fish with huge armored heads.  I don't know about you, but it looks fairly Tyranid-like to me. 

Pciture Four is of an Eurypterid (say that ten times fast), a family of so-called "sea scorpians" that lasted 210 million years starting way back in the Ordovician era about 460 Million B.C.  This particular example was the size of a bear, but there were even larger ones than this.  If you ask me these are so alien they look weird even compared to the 'Nids!

I also took pictures at the Air and Space Museum (which was literally one block away from my hotel).  I got these mostly because they are super nifty.

 

 

Picture Five is of a modern unmanned drone -- there has got to be some Imperial flyer potential here.  

Picture Six is of an experimental aircraft NASA used to test various technologies.  It's just simply cool.

Picture Seven is a model of the "original" (not really, but it's the first example to become famous) YB-49 flying wing from the late 1940s.  Unfortunately for its developer -- Northrop -- the technology to make a flying wing work safely did not really mature until the 1980s.

Picture Eight is of a collection of various rockets.  Nothing says "boom" like a missile.

These last two pics have nothing much to do with GW games, but I wanted to include them anyway.

 

I stopped by all the new monuments (at least since I lived nearby in the 80s), but none of them compare both visually and emotionally to the Vietnam War Memorial.  The second picture lists the name of a soldier who died in May of 1969 -- Larry D. Hoch.  I never met the guy (I was only 2 when he was killed), but he had the same last name as mine and given that he was from Pennsylvania -- the U.S. origin of the Hoch clan -- it is a good bet we are distantly related. 

For me this name brings home the true cost of war.  It's easy to forget that battles kill real people, not just little toy soldiers that we can later bring out again for another game as if nothing happened.  Hopefully, someday all "wars" will only be make-believe.

I am going off to Washington DC starting tomorrow for a Labor Day Weekend vacation.  Hope to see the Smithsonians (especially Air and Space, Hsitory, and Natural Sciences) and a bit of the old home stead since I grew up in the area.  Should be fun.

Until I get back on Tuesday I can't promise any posts, but I will see what I can do. Otherwise, I may have pictures that will relate to gaming.  Trust me.

Here is a quick description of what you’ll find in this issue of White Dwarf (in order of appearance):

New stuff this month – The new Space Hulk edition, the new Colonel Straken and Sergeant Harker Catachan models, the new Azhag the Slaughterer model (extremely impressive!), and some more modeling supplies including the return of a Warhammer Basing Kit (no skulls in this one, though).

Pages 14-50 are a Space Hulk extravaganza with a whole bunch of material on the upcoming game.

Pages 14-21 are a Designer Notes on Space Hulk that give a basic outline of the game, some basic fluff, and a couple of pages of pictures of the models gloriously painted.  All of the Blood Angel models are shown – every single one is unique and all look great.  They are entirely festooned with BA regalia, however, so converting them into something that doesn’t use a lot of blood drops or chalices in their symbolism is going to be a pain (at least they are plastic).  Sadly, not all of the genestealer models are displayed, but I assume that is because there are some duplicates (let’s face it – it’s harder to have ‘stealers look unique compared to marines).  The new Broodlord is one of the pictures and he’s pretty impressive, although not as distinct from the other ‘stealers as the current 40K version.

Pages 22-23 are a Space Hulk retrospective displaying the previous two versions and the new one.  The only practical visual difference between the 1996 edition and the current one is the level of detail.  Otherwise, they appear identical.

Pages 24-43 are an extended Space Hulk battle report complete with many, many pictures.  This includes diagrams of the game board itself.  The report goes into fairly good detail on the game.  Hey, overwatch is back!  As I’m sure you suspected the genestealers in this game are more powerful than those in 40K, something that I’m not sure makes me envious or not.  Having better genestealers would be great (and might even be mandatory for the new codex), but the higher cost that would come with them wouldn’t be.  And, no, I won’t tell you who wins the battle.

Pages 44-49 are a really nice in-depth explanation of how to paint the marine Space Hulk models bit-by-bit-by-bit.  This is stuff that anyone into painting their miniatures is apt to find useful.  Highlights include how to paint gems, faces, and a power sword.  Too bad there is nothing on painting ‘stealers.

Pages 52-61 cover the ongoing studio “Rok of Ages” 40K campaign as a way to show off Planetary Empires.  In the process they created two different “planets”, one representing an Imperial world and the other a huge Ork rok.  The campaign write up includes examples of regular and large games, including an Apocalypse showdown featuring titans.  If nothing else the article is inspirational.

Pages 62-67 are a description of a Warhammer Doubles tournament and by extension competitions in general.  Mostly a lot of text meant to show off the fun to be had at Games Workshop events (odd considering there were no U.S. Grand Tournaments this year).

Pages 68-71 feature the “Heroes of Catachan” otherwise known as the new Sergeant Harker and Straken models.  I have to say that they look good.  The Straken model is especially nice, which is a pain for me as I recently painted my old-style Straken model.  The detail on him is hands down better than the one I have now, though.  The article also gives some pointers on how to use both models in battle.

Pages 72-74 are a write up on Azhag Slaughterer, including a spectacular paint job on his miniature.  It’s truly excellent work.

Pages 76-95 consist of a long and detailed Warhammer battle report (that’s two for this issue) between 2250 points of Orks and Dark Elves.  The first is a pretty standard force (if on the small side if you ask me) while the pointy eared army consists of among other things a manticore (using a sweet elf dragon conversion) and three hyrdras (well, not really – two of the hydras are actually nifty chariot conversions)!  It also only has four core choices, three of them being rather modest (why does WD always seem to include armies heavy on the non-troops or core?).  Regardless of how well balanced either army may be they do look impressive.  As for the battle report it’s something best read rather than described.  I can say that it comes with the usual effective diagrams and plenty of pictures.

Pages 96-99 include one of Jarvis’ editorials, this one talking about a brand of scenarios he calls “Battlefield Challenges”.  Not surprisingly the next page includes one such “challenge”, namely a Warhammer scenario called “Forced March”.  This one uses a gimmick where you have to balance being able to go first with possibly not having all your troops beginning turn one.  Not sure how this would play, but I typically cringe at scenarios that require a lot of dice rolling to determine who shows up when.  Been burned too many times playing such games, I guess.

Pages 102-103 are an army showcase, in this case James Karch’s Ultramarines.  Needless to say they look great.  I especially like the paint job on the Black Reach dreadnought – it demonstrates who you can get great results even with something a bit “inferior” to the full price dread.

Beyond this there are the usual pages of Games Workshop ads and game material listings.  The last page does hint at the upcoming Space Wolves, but without offering anything we haven’t seen before.